Truth or Dare
by JPxLE
Summary: Five Gryffindor third-year girls are playing Truth or Dare in their dormitory. Lily Evans is given a dare she really doesn't want to do, but she's no chicken, right? ON HIATUS
1. The Dare

**Disclaimer:** Don't really see the point in disclaimers - If I was JK Rowling, why would I be writing Fan Fiction?

* * *

Thirteen year old Lily Evans sat cross-legged on the floor of her dormitory with the four other Gryffindor third year girls at Hogwarts. They had been gossiping and catching up on the days events.

"Hey," Alice Prewett said suddenly. "Let's play a game of truth or dare!"

"Good idea!" Mary MacDonald agreed.

"Who first?" asked Marlene McKinnon.

"Me, me, me!" exclaimed Anna Benson. "Hmmm... Okay, Mary, truth or dare?"

"Truth!" replied Mary.

"Alright, but remember you've got to tell the truth, no matter what." Anna commanded. Mary nodded, looking like she wished she had chosen dare instead. "Okay, this is an easy question to start us off." Mary looked relieved. "Who do you think is the best looking boy in our year?"

Mary blushed. "Sirius Black." she said almost inaudibly.

"I didn't quite catch that, Mary. Who did you say?" Lily teased.

"Sirius Black! Sirius Black, okay?" Mary yelled.

Marlene covered her ears. "Yeesh, Mary, I think there may have been some people in America that didn't hear you."

The five girls giggled.

"Still though," Marlene added, "I have to agree."

"I don't know," Anna argued. "I think James Potter is cuter."

"Pshh," Lily said, "They're both so full of themselves!"

"But the question wasn't who has the best personality, it was who is the best looking!" Marlene laughed. "Besides, when you're as hot as Sirius you're bound to be a little full of yourself."

Lily raised her eyebrows.

"Fine then, Lily," Anna challenged, "Who would you choose?"

Lily turned bright red. "Well... I don't have to answer that because it is not my turn!"

The girls groaned.

"Okay, then," Mary grinned coyly, "It's my turn to choose, and I choose Lily!"

"You still can't make answer," Lily smirked back, "because I choose dare."

"Ermm," Mary thought hard. "Got it! I dare you to … kiss James Potter!"

"On the lips!" Marlene added, "A proper kiss!"

"What? No! That's – that's ridiculous!" Lily protested, "I'm not doing that!"

"Too bad, Lily, you chose dare." Anna taunted.

"Oh, come on," Marlene scolded, "It's not like you have to kiss Peter Pettigrew is it? At least you were given someone good looking!"

"Or are you chicken?" Alice teased.

"No," Lily screamed, "I'm not a chicken!"

"Do it then," Alice said, raising her eyebrows.

"Fine, I will!" Lily yelled, caught up in the moment.

"You will?" Mary asked, astonished.

"Sure," Lily said, regretting her decision already, "I'm no chicken! Besides, like Marlene said, at least it's not Peter Pettigrew, right?"

"Yay!" Alice exclaimed. "You two would be so cute together!"

"Alice, I'm not marrying him," Lily scoffed, "I just have to kiss him for a dare. Everyone knows it doesn't mean anything."

"But Lily, isn't it your first kiss?" Mary asked quietly.

"Well, yeah," Lily defended, "but I have to get it out of the way sometime, right? Might as well be now."

"I suppose," Anna agreed, "but aren't you worried you'll be bad at it? And James is quite experienced for a thirteen year old..."

"Oh, stop trying to scare her out of it, you lot!" Marlene hollered. "Lily, you'll be fine. Come on, lets go before you chicken out."

"What, now?" Lily asked, uncertainly.

"Yes, now," Marlene cried impatiently, "When did you think? Next year?!"

"Urgh," Lily grumbled, standing up. "Right, lets go then."

Lily trudged down the stairs, closely followed by the others.

As she reached the bottom step, she glanced around the common room. She gave an exasperated sigh as she saw him sitting in a corner with the other Marauders, poring over a piece of parchment. Usually, this would have struck Lily as odd – Remus was the only remotely studious Marauder – but she had other things to worry about.

_Right, _she thought to herself, _I just have to do it quick. Get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. _

She sighed again, before striding across the room and stopping at the table that the Marauders surrounded. As she approached, they hastily shoved away the piece of parchment so she wouldn't see it.

When she reached them, she paused for a second, as if she was going to back out. But Lily Evans was stubborn and she was determined to prove that she was not a coward.

She grabbed the front of James's jumper and pulled him out of his armchair. With her fist still clutching his jumper, she quickly kissed him. On the lips, like she had agreed (grudgingly – those girls hadn't left any loopholes). There were no fireworks going off in her head, nothing like the movies. It wasn't a fairytale kiss, not how she thought her first kiss would be. James wasn't even responding, just standing there in shock.

_Three. Two. One. There, that should do it._ With that, she pulled away from him, and pushed him back onto his armchair. Sirius let out a wolf whistle as Lily walked back across the common room.

She finally reached the staircase to the girls dormitories and everyone resumed chatting and giggling.

Unbeknownst to Lily, James had not moved since she had pushed him back onto his armchair. He simply sat there with his jaw wide open, staring at Lily.

"Oi, shut your gob, you, flies might get in" Sirius said upon noticing that his best friend was staring at the now empty staircase leading to the girls dormitories.

James shook his head, grinned, and turned back to the table. "Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"

Remus smirked and raised an eyebrow before pulling out the piece of parchment they had been working on. "You didn't seem to mind, James." he commented.

"What? That's absurd. That's preposterous. That's – that's – I mean, I didn't have time to react, did I? She just pounced on me!" James protested.

Sirius patted James on the back, shaking his head. "It's all right you know. For a bookworm, she is quite hot. And if she likes you, I say go for it."

"What?" James said, looking very alarmed, "But I don't – I didn't even kiss her back."

"Yeah, because you were too busy standing there in shock!" Peter mocked.

"But you liked it though." Sirius grinned.

"N- No." James said unconvincingly.

"Whatever you say, James." Remus laughed.

"Urgh," James said too loudly, "Let's just get back to work shall we?"

Remus reluctantly agreed and smoothed out the mysterious piece of parchment.

* * *

Back in the girls dormitories, the five girls were giggling excitedly on the floor.

"So what was it like, Lily?" asked Mary, who had never kissed a boy before.

"Umm.. Okay, I guess." Lily replied. "It wasn't like I thought it would be."

"How do you mean?" Marlene asked.

"Well," Lily continued, "he just … stood there. He didn't, like, kiss me back or anything."

"What?" Anna asked, surprised. "But – but you're gorgeous! What's wrong with him?"

"Who cares, it was just a dare!" Lily laughed, "I don't fancy him or anything, so why does it matter if he didn't kiss back? Oh no, unless I'm a really bad kisser! What if he tells all the other boys I'm a bad kisser? Then nobody will ever want to kiss me! Oh, this is terrible! Oh-"

"Calm down, Lily!" Marlene laughed, "The only reason he didn't kiss back was because he was in shock!"

"You're just saying that to make me feel better." Lily pouted.

"No, seriously," Marlene continued, "He would have pushed you away if he was really repulsed, but he just stood there because he wasn't expecting it. If you had kissed him for a few more seconds, he _would_ have responded. Trust me."

"You think?" Lily asked, still sounding unconvinced.

"Definitely," Alice agreed. "Plus, I was watching him when you walked back across the common room."

"So?" Lily asked, confused.

Alice grinned. "He couldn't take his eyes off you."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Should I leave this as a one-shot or continue?


	2. Of Lies and Frogs

**Author's Note: **Okay, so I've decided to continue the story. I won't be able to update very often though, unfortunately. Maybe once a week. But with the Christmas holidays coming up, I'll probably be able to update more often.

_**P.S. I was so happy to get 15 reviews on the first chapter, that's the most I've got on any story! So thanks to all my reviewers, you really made my day with your lovely comments :)**_

* * *

Later that night, James Potter lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep. He couldn't get a certain redhead out of his mind.

He could tell that all of his room mates were asleep already, for he was so used to them, he could identify each of their snores.

Remus had a quiet snore, more like heavy breathing than snoring really. Peter snored at random times before tossing about in his sleep. Sirius had an obnoxious snore, so loud that it made one wonder if he was really asleep or if he was just fake-snoring extremely loudly to irritate everyone.

Usually these noises would have helped James to sleep – the steady rhythm always soothed him. But not tonight. He couldn't stop replaying that moment in his head. The moment when Lily Evans had kissed him.

James was extremely confused about this. He had snogged loads of girls, so why was this any different? It wasn't as if he fancied Lily. In fact, if he was totally honest with himself, he hadn't really noticed her before now. So why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

* * *

Lily Evans woke up with a start. As she looked around the dormitory, she noticed that all four of the other beds were empty. She sat up abruptly in her bed and groaned. She was late already.

Lily jumped out of bed and pulled on her uniform. She ran into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and ran her hand through her hair. She didn't have time to brush it if she wanted breakfast.

Grabbing her satchel, she dashed down the stairs and out of the common room. Lily ran through the hallways, getting a few funny looks as she passed by other students. She rushed into the Great Hall and spotted her friends sitting near the end of the Gryffindor table.

The Great Hall wasn't very full as most students had already finished breakfast. Lily stopped running and walked over to where her friends were sitting. She was a little surprised to see Alice, Anna, Mary and Marlene chatting to a group that liked to call themselves "The Marauders" - namely James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Petter Pettigrew.

James smirked at Lily as she sat down beside Mary. Lily looked at him strangely before realising -

"Crap!" she whispered to Mary, "Potter thinks I fancy him!"

Mary merely giggled and turned back to Remus to continue a conversation about some homework assignment. Lily rolled her eyes and turned to the breakfast table. Great. Potter just _had_ to be sitting across from her. And she couldn't move now. He would just think she was too shy to talk to him because she fancied him.

She reached across the table and grabbed a slice of toast. She put it on her plate and began buttering it whilst looking around the table at her friends. Marlene, Alice, Anna, Sirius, James and Peter were all chatting about the upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, although James seemed a bit distracted, which was odd because he loved Quidditch.

Mary and Remus were still talking about the homework assignment.

Suddenly, a bell rang, signally that class was about to begin. Lily quickly grabbed her toast from her plate as all the food vanished. She could hear scuffling throughout the Great Hall as everyone headed to class.

All of a sudden, her toast wasn't in her hand anymore. How had that happened? She blinked and looked up. James Potter was holding her toast.

"Not a morning person, eh?" James grinned, "Thanks for the toast, you buttered it just right!"

Lily opened her mouth in protest. Who did he think he was? But she was too late. He had taken a huge bite out of it.

"Why you-" Lily reached out to grab the toast from him.

"Ah, ah, Evans, no grabbing! Sharing is caring."

"Potter!" Lily yelled, "Give me my toast right this second! You've already had your breakfast, you pig!"

"Too late." James said innocently as he popped the remainder of the toast into his mouth.

"That's not fair!" Lily whined.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you?" James said with a sickly sweet smile. "Life's not fair."

Lily slapped him across the back of his head.

"Never steal my breakfast again, okay?" Lily told him in a menacing voice. "I'll go easy on you this time, but be warned – I do a mean Bat-Bogey Hex."

James smirked and turned to the other Marauders. Lily's friends were still getting up from the breakfast table.

The boys left and, as they were leaving, James turned around and winked at Lily. Lily scowled in response. Oh, that boy was infuriating!

Lily turned back to her friends and the five girls headed to their first class, which was Transfiguration. Lily liked Transfiguration, but it was one of her worst subjects.

When the girls reached the Transfiguration class, Lily noticed that the class had already started.

Lily opened the door nervously. She didn't get in trouble much, and she hated being given out to.

Lily walked into the classroom first, closely followed by Marlene, Anna and Alice, with Mary hiding away at the back of the group.

The class all looked up to watch the latecomers. Professor McGonagall looked up from the roll call sheet.

"Girls, you are late." she frowned. "Explain yourselves."

"Um, well," Lily began, thinking frantically, "We were on the way to class when... Mary's bag burst open, yeah, and all her books fell out and the ink bottles smashed and we had to clean it all up and fix her bag and..." Lily trailed off.

"Very well, girls," McGonagall said with a slight smirk, "I'll let you away with it this time as you are generally good students, but see that it doesn't happen again."

Lily nodded and the girls hurried to the only seats left, right at the front.

The lesson began. Lily could tell it was going to be difficult. They were learning how to transfigure erasers into frogs.

Suddenly, a scrunched up piece of parchment landed on Lily's desk. She cautiously opened it when McGonagall wasn't looking.

Scrawled on the parchment in handwriting she didn't recognise was:

_You're a terrible liar, you know._

Lily looked around to see who could have thrown the note. Sure enough, directly behind her sat James Potter, smirking at her. Lily glared at him and turned back to the lesson.

"...so, let's get started." McGonagall was saying, "Mary, pass out these erasers please. One for everyone."

Soon, the whole class was alive with shouted incantations, groans of frustration and the occasional croak.

Lily was feeling very frustrated with herself. She still hadn't managed to turn her eraser into a frog. All she had managed to do was turn it green and swell it up a bit.

She was annoyed as she looked around the classroom and saw the James, Sirius and Remus had already managed to transfigure their erasers into frogs. Remus was now helping Peter with the incantation; James and Sirius were levitating theirs around the room.

Lily grumbled and turned back to her eraser. A few seconds later she felt something land on her head.

"Hey, Sirius!" she heard James Potter call out, "What do you call a girl with a frog on her head?"

James and Sirius burst into laughter, as did Marlene and Anna who were beside Lily.

Lily gingerly lifted the frog off her head and threw it at James.

"Potter!" she snarled.

"Oh, calm down, Lils," James told her, "It was just a joke."

"Well, it wasn't a very funny joke." Lily growled. "And don't call me Lils."

"Your friends seem to think it was pretty funny, Lils."

Lily glared at Marlene and Anna, who shrugged apologetically.

"...because her name is Lily," Lily heard Remus explain patiently to Peter, "and frogs sit on lily pads, so a girl with a frog on her head is called -"

"Is called Lily! Oh, now I get it!" Peter exclaimed. "Good one, James!"

Lily groaned and turned back to her frog. McGonagall was coming around the room to see how everyone was doing, and Lily still hadn't managed to transfigure her eraser into a frog yet.

She was waving her wand and saying the incantation as well as she could, when a hand landed on her wrist.

"Here," said a voice behind her, "You've nearly got it. You're just waving your wand a bit wrong. You have to swish and flick, like this." The hand that belonged to the voice gently lifted her wrist and made her hand swish and flick her wand.

"That's it. Now say the incantation." said the voice that Lily now recognised to be James Potter's. Lily said the incantation as James continued to help her with the wand movement. Pop! Her eraser turned into a frog.

James lifted his hand off her arm as she moved to put her wand away.

"Er, thanks, Potter." Lily said.

James beamed at her. "It was all you, really."

Lily studied him for a second. Why was he being so nice to her now? "This doesn't mean I have to like you, though." she told him.

James smirked. "'Course not."

Lily twirled back to her table to retry transfiguring her frog. She could tell this was going to be a very long and confusing day.


	3. Alone

**Author's Note:** _Sorry I took so long to update this! I won't make excuses :P I know this chapter is quite short and not much happens, but it's leading up to the next chapter. I've written most of the next chapter and will post it tomorrow, hopefully!_

Lily was still confused about James' behaviour in Transfiguration the day before. Why was he suddenly being so nice to her? Aside from the frog prank, obviously. Before that stupid dare, James Potter had never even talked to her before, so why was he suddenly giving her so much attention?

"... weekend. So, what do you think, Lily?" Anna was saying.

"Mmm.. What?" Lily replied.

"You weren't listening to a word I said, were you?"

"I listened to a few of them..." Lily grinned sheepishly.

Anna shook her head in mock disappointment. "Well, anyway, as I was saying when you were away with the fairies, Amos Diggory asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him! Like on a date!"

"Wow, Anna, that's great!" Lily exclaimed. "I'm so happy for you!"

"So you think I should go? You don't think he's too old or anything? Mary says he's too old, but Marlene says I should go for it. I already told him yes, though, so what will I do if I don't want to go anymore? Do you think he would be mad? But I think I do want to go. Although, maybe Mary has a point -"

"ANNA!" Lily giggled, interrupting Anna's babbling. Anna had a tendency to ramble on if she wasn't stopped in time. "Listen, forget about what everyone else thinks. Do you like Amos?"

"Well, yes." Anna blushed. "He has such dreamy eyes and really nice hair and he's very funny too and he's so kind. This one time, I saw him helping a little first year that -"

"I think it's pretty obvious what you have to do, don't you?"

"You think I should go on the date, then? But won't Mary be mad at me?" Anna bit her lip anxiously.

"Anna, he's only one year older than us! Don't worry about Mary, she's only trying to look out for you. And of course she won't be mad. You've been best friends since you were five!"

Anna and Mary had grown up on the same street and had gone to the same primary school. Although Anna's parents were Muggles, Mary was a pureblood whose parents had wanted her to get educated before Hogwarts, and so had sent her to a Muggle primary school where she had befriended Anna. Mary knew about magic, of course, as she was from a pureblood family, but imagine her surprise when Anna fell out of a tree and landed on her feet! Mary told Anna all about Hogwarts and the magical world, and they had stayed best friends at Hogwarts. Lily thought it was such a sweet story.

"Okay, thanks Lily, I knew you'd be able to help!", Anna grinned, hugging Lily.

"No problem," Lily told her, returning the hug. "But you are going to have to tell me _all _about the date when you get back!"

o.o.o.o.o.o

Lily walked up the stairs to the girls dormitories after a long day of classes. When she reached the 3rd year dorm, she threw her satchel on her bed. Marlene and Alice were both sitting cross-legged on Alice's bed, talking quietly and giggling every so often.

"Hey," Lily called over to them. "I was thinking about going down to dinner early. Anyone want to come?"

"... Oh. Well, um, I really would … But I, er -"

"It's okay," Lily interrupted. "I'll just go by myself."

Lily sighed as she walked back down to the common room. She hated eating alone. Well, it wasn't so much the eating alone that she hated, but she always felt like people were looking at her and making fun of her for being alone.

As Lily made her way out of the common room, somebody noticed Lily walking by herself, looking quite sad. That somebody was James Potter.

"Is it just me, or does Evans seem to be alone all the time?" he wondered aloud, to nobody in particular.

"Is it just me, or do you seem to be talking about Evans a lot lately?" Peter grinned.

James glared at Peter. "Yeesh, I'm just trying to look out for my fellow Gryffindors. She looked sad is all."

"Well if you're quite finished looking out for your fellow Gryffindors, could we get back to the map?" Sirius smirked. "If you spend all your time staring at Evans, we'll never get it finished!"

"I wasn't staring." James argued lamely. "I was just, er, looking at this other thing and I happened to notice -"

"Of course you were." Remus commented. "Now, the next problem is that we need to protect the map from teachers and other people who shouldn't have it."

"Like a password?" James asked, glad that Remus had changed the subject.

"Yes," Remus replied, before looking around to make sure nobody was listening. "I had an idea..."

The four boys hunched over the piece of parchment and continued working.

Meanwhile, Lily Evans was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, moving her food around her plate with her fork. Sighing, she decided she wasn't really so hungry anymore.

Pushing her plate away, she decided to go to the library. At least when she was there, she didn't feel like such a loser – lots of people went to the library alone.

It wasn't that Lily didn't have friends, she did. She was friends with all the girls in her dorm – Mary, Anna, Alice and Marlene. It was just that Lily's friends preferred each other to her. They didn't exclude her - they were perfectly nice to her, but Lily never felt like she could tell them her secrets or anything like that. She felt like the odd one out, in a way. Anna and Mary were best friends, and Marlene and Alice were practically inseparable too. Nobody noticed that Lily was left out, and that suited Lily. She was able to just get on with her studies and let the world think she was perfectly happy. At least her friends liked her, unlike her sister.

Lily had always been best friends with her older sister Petunia. Her parents' friends had always commented on the sisters' close friendship. That had all changed when Lily had received her letter inviting her to Hogwarts. Now Petunia only talked to her when she absolutely had to, and addressed her as a freak when she did. Lily knew that Petunia was jealous, that she had wanted to go to Hogwarts too, for she had found a letter to Petunia from Professor Dumbledore explaining that Petunia couldn't attend Hogwarts as she didn't have any magical abilities. He was very nice about it, though.

Knowing why Petunia hated her so much didn't make it any easier for Lily to accept that she had lost her best friend. Lily also noticed that this one-sided feud between Lily and Petunia upset their parents greatly, so she chose to spend all her holidays at Hogwarts apart from the summer holidays, when students could not remain at school.

At least when Lily was at school, she had people she could call friends, who liked her and who she had fun with. Sometimes it felt like they were her best friends, but Lily always knew that if one person was to be left out in the group, it would always be her.


	4. Black Letter

Lily walked up to her dorm to get her satchel so she could go to the library and start her homework. When she reached her dorm, it was empty, so Lily decided she would do her assignments there instead.

She had just started the Transfiguration essay that Professor McGonagall had set them when she heard something tapping the window. She trudged over to the window and unlatched it. A very important-looking owl flew in. It looked rather like the owls Hogwarts sent out school reports with. The owl dropped a letter into Lily's hands and flew away. Lily found this a bit strange because owls usually stayed, either for food and water or to wait for a reply to the letter they had delivered.

Lily opened the letter and read through it quickly. She re-read it a few times, tears filling her eyes.

Clutching the letter, she ran through down the stairs, through the common room and out through the portrait. She didn't know where else to go, so she made her way down two floors and ran to the Prefects bathroom. Nobody would find her there and she could be alone with her thoughts.

Once Lily was inside, she collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. She didn't know how long she had been there when the tears stopped. She had a terrible headache from the crying and her eyes were sore. She still felt like crying, but no tears would flow. It seemed as if she had run out of tears.

The letter she had received lay on the floor beside her, crumpled and slightly torn where she had grabbed it. Gingerly, she picked it up and read it again.

_Dear Ms. Evans_

_We have received intelligence that there was a break-in at your parents' residence at twenty-three minutes past eleven last night. _

_We regret to inform you that your father, William Evans, was killed whilst attempting to protect Petunia and Martha Evans. Aurors arrived on the scene in time to save Petunia and Martha Evans, who were transported to St. Mungos immediately. Petunia Evans was released early this morning. Unfortunately, Martha Evans did not make it through the night. She was hit with an undetectable curse that caused her to bleed internally. She died at forty-seven minutes past three this morning._

_Damage to your parents' residence was repaired and the Muggles of Spinners End had their memories modified._

_Hoping you are well,_

_Yours sincerely,_

_John Dawlish_

_Auror Office_

_Ministry of Magic._

Lily still couldn't believe it. Both of her parents, gone. The only two people that truly loved her, gone forever. And it was all her fault.

Although the letter didn't specifically say it, obviously it was Dark wizards who had broken into her parents' home because the letter mentioned that her mother was hit by a curse. Also, her family wouldn't have been sent to St. Mungos if their injuries weren't magic-related. And Dark wizards wouldn't have broken into her home and killed her parents if she wasn't a witch. It was all her fault And she knew Petunia would hate her even more now, if that was even possbile.

She hated herself for even thinking it, but she almost wished it had been Petunia instead of her parents. Now she had nobody left that really and truly cared about her.

Lily wondered if she should tell her friends about her parents' deaths. She decided against it because they would probably try to make her feel better by saying things like "I know how you feel" which, of course, they couldn't. Nobody knew how she felt. She was totally alone.

_Okay_, Lily told herself, _pull yourself together. You can get through this._

She sniffed a little before carefully folding up the letter and putting it into her pocket.

As Lily was passing the mirror above the sink on her way out, she glimpsed her reflection. She looked a state. Her eyes were red, her skin looked pale and blotchy, her hair was messed up and there were dried tears down her cheeks. She decided to clean up first in case somebody saw her in the hallways. It was almost curfew, but Lily found that she didn't care.

Walking around the swimming pool-like tub, she filled the pool with water and various bubble baths. When the pool was full, Lily left her clothes folded neatly by the edge of the pool and slid in gently. She dived under the water and resurfaced, pushing her hair back. She swam a few lengths of the pool, trying to clear her head. It wasn't working and Lily could feel herself tiring, so she decided to just relax. She swam to the edge and sat on the ledge that ran around the pool below water level.

After a while, Lily started to feel sleepy, so she got out and wrapped herself in a fluffy white towel. She grabbed another towel and started drying her hair with it.

After she was dry and dressed, she sat down and took out her letter again. She re-read it for what felt like the millionth time. She thought she probably knew it off by heart at this stage.

Sighing, she folded up the letter and headed out of the bathroom. Nobody was in the hallway outside, so Lily assumed it must be past curfew.

Lily tapped her wand on her head, performing the disillusionment charm. She shuddered as she experienced the sensation of having a raw egg broken on her head.

She hurried along the corridor. As she neared the top of the staircase leading to the sixth floor, she heard a noise ahead of her.

Moving as silently as she could, she crept up the last few stairs. She could hear muttering that seemed to be coming from an alcove a few feet away. She tip-toed closer, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"...would never work." Lily heard a deep voice mutter. "We'd be found out straight aw- What was that?"

Lily ran as fast as she could, not looking back to see who the voice had belonged to, running until she had reached the end of the corridor. She rounded the corner and leaned against the wall, staying as quiet as possible.

After a minute or two, she heard footsteps. She peeked around the corner and saw two people going in separate directions. She didn't recognise the first person, someone with dark hair and a hefty build. The second person, however, she did recognise. She couldn't miss the blonde hair, so fair it was almost white. Lucius Malfoy, a seventh year Slytherin.

Lily wondered if she should tell Professor Dumbledore. She knew Malfoy was involved in the Dark Arts, but it was entirely possible that the meeting she had overheard had nothing to do with that.

She decided to sleep on it and hurried off to bed before she was caught wandering the corridors after hours.

As she drifted to sleep, all Lily could think about was how much she was dreading the next day. She would have to put on an extremely convincing act if she didn't want anyone to ask questions. But how was she supposed to act like everything was okay when her whole world had just been torn apart?

* * *

**Author's Note:**_ Because of the snow, my Christmas holidays were extended! So hopefully I will have another chapter up tomorrow or the next day._


End file.
